James Axler (32 page)

“My train!” the baron screamed. “What has happened to my glorious train?”

Adam shook his head and turned to look at his master. His eyes widened when he saw the red-haired woman standing beside the baron, pulling back her fist.

“Baron Burgess, look—” he began.

Burgess’s hood shook as he turned his head. Krysty watched his fiery green eyes turn on her and she launched an upper cut the length of her torso before connecting with his jaw in a solid blow.

“What?” Burgess howled as the punch slammed hard into his chin and his teeth clashed together with a clap.

His head snapped backward on his neck and the voluminous folds of his hood dropped to his shoulders.

Krysty stood staring, her follow-up punch forgotten as she looked into the revealed face of Baron Burgess.

He was entirely bald, and his exposed skin looked old and haggard. His bright eyes were a fierce green within the bloodshot yellows where the whites should have been. Wiring sprung from the top and back of his head, linked through open wounds straight onto the pulsing mass of brain that could be seen through a Swiss cheese sequence of drilled holes. The man had been repeatedly trepanned, and she could see that the attached wires disappeared into the back of the robe and, most likely, through it and into the floor below. The baron, she realized, had never moved more than a few feet in all the time she had seen him.

Burgess tilted his head, recognition in his eyes as he looked at Krysty’s shocked expression. He smiled and she saw the rotten teeth that lined his mouth, the gums that they sat in an angry shade of violet. “You look horrified, Krysty Wroth,” he told her solicitously, as though to a child when his cruel prank has finally been revealed. To her right another explosion rocked the room as more cars burst into flame.

“What…?” Krysty began, unsure how to even voice the question that was forming in her mind. “Are you some kind of ’bot?”

Baron Burgess laughed as he shook his head, his voice sounding as pained as ever. “To achieve perfection one has to be willing to make sacrifices,” he told her. “This was the only way to truly ensure that the system would respond to my commands. So I willingly became a part of it.”

Krysty looked at the bald man, the wires jutting from his skull, and she felt a twinge of sadness.

Perhaps, somewhere in the distant past, Baron Burgess had been an idealist. Perhaps he had had not a plan but a dream, a vision. But somewhere on his quest to fulfill his ideal to create a working, ordered civilization from the wreckage that was the , he had given himself over to the system of its implementation and he had given up a little piece of humanity in the process. She saw it all then—the harvesting of children’s malleable brains that acted as the transmitters in the towers. “What kind of monster does this to himself?” Krysty asked, thrusting her left fist toward the cloaked man.

But Krysty’s punch failed to connect. The strength in her muscles ebbed away, like water through netting, and she just sank, straight down, as though collapsing in on herself. Her legs folded beneath her, then she slumped back and to the side, dropping to the floor of the dais. Burgess stood over her, his fierce stare burning through her, sapping her will.

“We don’t need my glorious train anymore, girl,” he bragged. Krysty felt icy claws plucking at her memories, a burning sensation behind her eyes as though her optic nerves were aflame. Baron Burgess was there, inside her head, pulling and wrenching at everything that made her Krysty Wroth, pulling at her very self.

DOC RAPPED the bearded sec man across the knuckles with his lion’s-head walking cane and the man dropped his blaster with a yelp.

Jak sprang forward, garroting the man with the small length of chain that bound his wrists. The man fell backward, slumping to the hard ground with the albino youth’s weight atop him. The sec man clenched his hands around Jak’s forearms, trying to pull away the pressure on his throat. As he did so he saw the older, white-haired man lean forward and point a blaster at his throat.

“Watch your hands,” Doc told Jak as he pulled the trigger on the Colt Python. There was a loud report and the bullet drove through the chain links between Jak’s wrists, splitting the chain before drilling into the sec man’s throat, killing him instantly.

The crowd of people around them were starting to react now, and Doc handed Jak his blaster and pulled his trusty LeMat from its holster. Jak swung the six-inch barrel of his weapon toward the dais and fired off a quick shot at the sec man who stood at the foot of the small staircase.

“Shooter still good,” the albino teen stated, a wide grin splitting his face as he headed toward the stairs.

“J.B. oiled it for you,” Doc called back as he knelt in a defensive position beside the group of frightened children.

Jak scrambled up the abbreviated flight of steps and onto the dais. He could see Krysty flailing as she dropped to the floor, and a bald-headed man poised over her, grinning maliciously. Beside the bald man was the scarred man who had killed his friends, Francis-Frankie and Maddie, his face away from Jak as he watched the burning wreckage of the train.

Jak saw a movement across the room, at the other end of the dais behind the retreating woman in the wheelchair, but he dismissed it, keeping his mind on his primary objective. He raised the Colt Python and reeled off two shots at the figures in front of him. The bald baron swayed as the first shot glanced past him, missing him by barely an inch. Adam wasn’t as lucky—the bullet punctured his left leg and he danced on the spot as he struggled to maintain his balance.

Adam’s huge frame turned to face his attacker and he saw the wiry young albino sprinting toward him, a sliver of smoke emanating from the raised blaster in his hand. Adam still held the ax, and he tossed it in a rotating arc toward Jak in a flinch reaction.

Jak weaved below the onrushing ax and fired another shot at Adam’s legs, the large-bore bullet shattering his left hip in a burst of bone fragments and blood. Adam howled as the bullet destroyed his leg, and his hand reached down to the Magnum blaster he had holstered in his belt.

“Not escaping,” Jak said solemnly as he ran at the scarred man, toppling him as their bodies slammed together.

Adam had his blaster free now, but Jak was on top of him, too close to shoot. He used the blaster like a club, slamming the butt into Jak’s back and the lowest part of his neck. The albino teen continued his savage attack, arms swinging as he clawed at Adam’s face, his legs pumping to drive the pair of them on across the dais. Adam could feel the hot flood of blood pouring down his left leg, and he couldn’t seem to use the leg properly to anchor himself. Suddenly there was no floor to step on and Adam found himself walking backward into thin air before falling at an angle toward the ground a few feet below, Jak still driving at him in an unrestrained rush of rage. With a slam, Adam’s body met the ground below, shoulders and the back of his head first, knocking the wind out of him. His blaster went flying, spinning across the floor before halting barely two feet away from the frantic pair of combatants.

Adam rolled to his left, tossing his attacker aside. As Jak wheeled away, Adam howled, unspeakable pain assaulting his shattered hip. He watched the strange, albino youth across the floor from him as he grabbed for the blaster he had dropped. Jak rolled across the floor before coming up in a crouch. He pointed his blaster at Adam’s face, and his red eyes narrowed in determination.

“Bullet for tongue,” Jak said through gritted teeth, pulling the trigger.

With a burst of crimson, the lower half of Adam’s face disappeared in the same way Francis-Frankie had been wounded back at the tower. His hand twitched and he ceased reaching for the blaster he had dropped moments before.

J.B. SPRAYED the crowd with bullets from his Uzi, forcing them away from the captive children and the dais as more explosions gripped the broken train.

Flames were racing up the wall now, and he could feel the heat of the fire here, halfway across the vast room.

He kept his blaster aimed away from Doc, Jak and the child prisoners.

The explosions had shaken up the crowd, and sec men were only now reacting, almost a minute after the first explosion, to the enemies in their midst. As far as J.B. was concerned, it was a turkey shoot. Everybody in his line of fire was an enemy and every last body, dead or alive, provided more cover for him. All he had to do was keep moving.

THREE DAYS Ryan had hung there, with no food to eat and only the little rainwater that hit his face to drink.

And all it had done was make him meaner, more focused than ever.

Mildred watched in admiration as the one-eyed man pushed himself up from the floor and rolled his shoulders to ease the tension in his muscles. Blood seeped into the bandages that Mildred had wrapped around his worn wrists as he flexed and tensed his hands, painfully driving away any lasting numbness. Standing amid the shattered glass, Ryan stretched his right hand to his hip and pulled the 9 mm SIG-Sauer from the worn leather holster. “Come on, Mildred,” he said through cracked lips, “time to end this thing.” With that, he strode determinedly to the door as another explosion rocked the room outside. Hefting her backpack on her shoulders, Mildred followed, the ZKR-551 target revolver ready.

Outside the control room it was turmoil. People were running in all directions as fire engulfed the monstrous train. Flames leaped up the wall next to the burning train, and Mildred realized they were lucky to depart their cover when they had. In a few moments those flames would spread and cover the doorway. Ahead of her, Ryan walked heavily, his muscles still aching. He led her around the front of the train, not so much as wasting a single glance on the area where he had hung for the past three days, no curiosity while there was a job to do. Flames lapped at the wheels and rear of the engine and the matte paint blistered as heat engulfed it.

Ryan just continued on, surveying the scene until he spotted Krysty’s bright hair on the dais at the room’s center.

Head down, he marched toward the dais, with Mildred jogging along beside him, making their way through the startled mob.

J.B. WAS NEXT TO Doc now, firing short bursts from the Uzi into the air, keeping the crowd at bay. A number of the crowd had organized themselves, rushing around with buckets of water to try to douse the flames that stretched the length of the room along the train tracks by the right-hand wall. They were no longer concerned with guarding the children.

“How are we, Doc?” J.B. asked as he stood by Doc’s side.

Doc glanced at the Armorer, amused to see that during all the chaos the man had still managed to retrieve his hat from wherever it had fallen after Krysty’s disguise had been blown, along with Ryan’s longblaster. “I’ve done a quick recce, but I can’t see any keys for the handcuffs,” he said, indicating the children huddled behind him. “We’re going to have to break the chains manually, I think.”

J.B. shrugged. “As long as they’re alive. Any sign of Mildred?”

“None,” Doc told him, blasting off a swift shot with his LeMat as someone in the crowd leveled a shotgun in their direction. The man fell to the floor, a bloody wound dead center in his chest.

J.B.’s head flicked back and he scanned the dais. Jak had disappeared but Krysty was still up there, scrambling along the floor, trying to get away from the baron.

For the first time he noticed the transparent panels along the side of the raised platform and saw the gray liquid that swirled within, lighted in a strangely pulsing manner. Having witnessed the awful death of the girl, he knew now what that liquid was: brain matter.

Whatever this insane baron was doing, it involved the transference of thoughts, and the ideal medium for thought transference was brain—the horrifying logic was inescapable.

J.B. saw something else, too—two familiar figures jogging up the steps of the dais from the direction of the train. “Looks like she found Ryan,” he told Doc as he turned his attention back to the frantic crowd that surrounded them.

LYING SUPINE on the floor of the dais, Krysty kicked with her heels and pushed herself backward, away from the leering baron. The baron’s intense grip on her mind had wavered when Jak’s bullet glanced by his shoulder, and Krysty felt the fog in her head lifting once more. She reached into the pocket of her jumpsuit and gripped the handle of the .38 Smith & Wesson she had hidden there.

Looming above her, the robed baron smiled a fierce, horrible grin. “Come to me, Krysty Wroth,” he spoke softly, “don’t try to resist.”

“Resist this, Burgess!” she shouted, revealing the .38 in her hand and blasting a shot at his face. The bullet missed him by a fraction of an inch, leaving a bloody gash on his cheek. The baron flinched, slapping his hand against the wound.

From the far end of the dais, Krysty heard a strained voice call her name. Her eyes darted across for a moment and she saw Ryan and Mildred rushing up the steps and onto the stage. Mildred fired shots at the whitecoats, hobbling them to ensure they didn’t escape. In the turmoil, the old woman and her wheelchair had disappeared, Krysty realized. When had that happened?

Ryan had his blaster raised, and he bellowed something at the baron as he ran across the stage. “You shouldn’t piss off Krysty,” he yelled, and the baron turned, piercing him with his stare. Krysty knew the power of that gaze now. It had caused the sec man to kill himself, made the pretty, young Asian girl harm herself in the most savage, brutal manner, and it had locked Krysty’s mind to the point of complete seizure.

She raised the barrel of her blaster and targeted the back of the baron’s head. At the same time, Ryan pulled the trigger on his SIG-Sauer.

The noise of the twin shots was lost in the general hubbub of the panicked room. From opposite directions, two bullets raced through the air toward the same target: the trepanned skull of Baron Burgess.

Perhaps they hit at the same instant, no one would ever be sure, but the bald man’s skull cracked as the bullets drove through it, and a mass of gray jelly and wiring splattered into the air as the now-headless body fell to the floor.